soma new Objects in Chemical Philosophy. oyj 
After these illustrations, I trust the former opinions which 
I ventured to bring forward, concerning the metals of the 
fixed alkalies, will be considered as accurate, and that 
potassium and sodium, can with no more propriety be con- 
sidered as compounds , than any of the common 7netallic 
substances; and that potash and soda, as formed by the com- 
bustion of the metals, are pure metallic oxides, in which no 
water is known to exist. 
These conclusions must be considered as entirely indepen- 
dent of hypothetical opinions, concerning the existence of 
hydrogene in combustible bodies, as a common principle of 
inflammability, and of intimately combined water, as an essentia! 
constituent of acids, alkalies, and oxides ; this part of the en- 
quiry I shall reserve for the conclusion of the lecture, and I 
shall first consider the nature of the metal of ammonia, and 
the metals of the earths. 
III. Experiments on Nitrogene, Ammonia , and the Amalgam 
from Ammonia. 
One of the queries that I advanced, in attempting to reason 
upon the singular phaenomena produced by the action of po- 
tassium upon ammonia was, that nitrogene might possibly 
consist of oxygene and hydrogene, or that it might be com- 
posed from water. 
I shall have to detail in this section, a great number of la- 
borious experiments, aud minute and tedious processes, made 
with the hopes of solving this problem. My results have 
of water. From my own observations I am inclined to believe, that potash kept for 
some time in a red heat, contains 16 or 17 per cent, of water, taking the potash formed 
by the combustion of potassium, as the dry standard. 
